Originally Answered: Is it possible to learn really old English? Yes, but it's very difficult. It's like learning a foreign language—immediately lose the idea that you have an inside track because you know modern English, if anything, you'd do well to set that aside.
How difficult is it to learn Old English?
Yes. Old English is far more inflected than modern English, and the spelling is also very different, so it is almost like trying to learn a different language. It's probably just as easy for an English-speaking person to learn Swedish as to learn Old English.
Can Old English be fluent?
I also know a few who can speak and converse in the language, probably with a limited vocabulary. So yes, it is possible to learn to speak Old English, and organisations exist which will help you do this.
Is it easy to understand Old English?
But despite the differences between Old English and Modern English, the language retains a fundamental kinship to our own. Thus students can expect to find learning Old English to be somewhat easier than learning a new "foreign" language such as Spanish or French.
What is the best way to learn Old English?
Use a textbook. A textbook on Old English can help you to learn more about the language as you read Beowulf. There are many different textbooks on Old English available and consulting the websites of different scholars who teach the language can help you identify different options that might work for you.
How long will it take to learn Old English?
They can get rudimentary reading skills in only four months or so, if they're linguistically gifted and have a background in some similar language to Old English. If the students haven't had German, they can still pick Old English up relatively easily compared to other foreign languages, say in just a year or so.
How do you say hello in Old English?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q9YwYMOSQs
Is it easy to learn Anglo-Saxon?
It is more extensively inflected than modern German. You get a few points for shared vocabulary, but in general, you have to rate it as a relatively difficult foreign language.
How do you say hello in Saxon?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4mWZufwxpI
How can I speak in Old English?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGOHfvjccEg
What was the first way to say hello?
Telephone. The use of hello as a telephone greeting has been credited to Thomas Edison; according to one source, he expressed his surprise with a misheard Hullo. Alexander Graham Bell initially used Ahoy (as used on ships) as a telephone greeting. However, in 1877, Edison wrote to T. B. A.
Why can't we read Old English?
No. Old English has a lot of words that would eventually become words we would recognize (out of the 50 most commonly used words in English, all but one or two are derived from OE). And if you read an OE text, you can probably pick out a word here or there that you can parse out.